ORCHARDS. 193 



in many cases for fifty years, and some are known to have borne 

 for a hundred or more. 



Your committee are so deeply impressed with the value of 

 good fruit, not only to individuals, but to the community at 

 large, that they would venture to urge upon all who have the 

 facilities, a close attention to its cultivation. Good fruit of 

 whatever kind will always find a ready market, and bring a 

 remunerative price ; so that he who engages intelligently in its 

 cultivation need have no fears as to the result, whether his object 

 be health, pleasure or profit. 



M. Warner, Chairman. 



Martha's vineyard. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Orchards, properly includes orcharding, or the planting and 

 cultivation of orchards. Treating the matter in this general 

 way, the committee would premise that the thoughts they have 

 to express are not wholly the results of their own personal 

 observations, although they are partly so ; but they are in a 

 great measure gathered from the declared and authentically 

 reported experiences of some of the greatest and best pomolo- 

 gists in the country. And if one can have the undoubted prac- 

 tical results of experience, which amount to actual knowledge 

 on the part of the experimenters, it is incomparably better than 

 all mere theories, however finely gilded. 



It is thought by many that orcharding in New England 

 cannot be carried on as easily and with as good success now as 

 in the early years of the settlement of the country, when the 

 clearings were comparatively small, and the forests extensive. 

 It is held that the latter then afforded shelter to the fruit trees, 

 of which protection there is now in many places, especially on 

 the sea-coast, a great lack ; thus exposing the trees to the salt 

 spray or mist from the ocean in times of high south-westerly 

 winds. This condition of things, it is believed, has not only had 

 a damaging effect upon the fruit crops, but also on the lives 

 of the trees themselves. And this is unquestionably true of the 

 peach, whatever may have been the degree of injury to other 

 trees of the orchard. It is said that in those early years fruit 



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